Central U.S. next in line for a mega quake?

In a report released on March 12th in the Kremlin prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Institute of Physics of the Earth, is warning that the America’s are in danger of suffering a mega-quake of catastrophic proportions during the next 14 day's with a specific emphasis being placed on the United States, Mexico, Central America and South American west coast regions along with the New Madrid Fault Zone region.

Raising the concerns of a mega-quake occurring, this report says, are the increasing subtle electromagnetic signals that are being detected in the Earth’s upper atmosphere over many regions of the World, with the most intense being over the US Western coastal and Midwest regions.

The New Madrid Fault Line  is centered in the central part of the country and could affect more than 15 million people in eight states. (Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.) But the roughly 1 million people in the metro Memphis, Tenn., region are considered by the U.S. Geological Survey to be at greatest risk from a quake of 7.0 or 8.0. According to an August 2009 report by the U.S. Geological Survey the potential impact could be devastating.

The report predicts that a major earthquake along the New Madrid fault line could lead to catastrophic loss of life, including for children and first responders. This part of the country appears unprepared in terms its capacity for buildings and infrastructure to survive a big quake. The last big quake to hit the New Madrid fault was a series of four in 1811 and 1812. Those are estimated to have been between 7.0 and 8.0 in magnitude and made the Mississippi flow backwards.